Gary Thornock's Weblog

I seem to be trying all sorts of new things these days. Yesterday it was getting a Mac and starting up this blog, which, by the way, is still in an experimental development environment on my home web server. I'm still looking into hosting services: I'm not sure yet whether I want to use a managed, shared host or something like Linode.com that gives me a full virtual box with root access. I'm kind of leaning toward Linode just for the certainty of having a login shell (and, therefore, ability to do things like run mysql scripts from the command line instead of depending on phpMyAdmin). But, managed hosting accounts are significantly less expensive, and that counts for a lot. Besides, having root access on even a virtual box means that not only can you do your own system administration, you pretty much have to, and I'm not sure I want the overhead just now. In any case, I'll probably pick one or the other within the next couple of days, register a domain name and move this blog onto the new site.

Today's new thing is biking to work. I guess that's not entirely a new thing: I did it a few times in the late 1990's. But, the bike I had wasn't really the right size (a 48 cm frame when I need 63), and it was a mountain bike when a road bike would have been a better choice for the job, so the experience wasn't all that great. In any case, I picked up a bike — the right size this time — for $15 at a garage sale today and did a little work cleaning it up. Right now it's in the shop because it needs some new cables (particularly the front derailleur), but once I get it back, I'm going to try riding it to work a few times a week. I probably won't be able to ride every day, but I figure if the bike and a Provo City license cost less than a tank of gas, and the shop work costs less than an oil change, I can't lose, right?